I keep hearing of political or religious tolerance as if that is something that is required by law.  Neither of them are, I don't have to tolerate your beliefs politically or in relgion, just as you don't have to tolerate mine.  We do however have to allow the person to have those beliefs and freely express them.  We don't have to tolerate them as being true though. 

That is where the radical's of all beliefs lose their understanding of other peoples rights and become dominating.  As an example.

The radical Muslims believe that if someone makes a cartoon of Mohammed they should be killed, because they have blasphemed their prophet.  They have taken away the right of the person who drew the cartoon to voice their opinion.  Why because they no tolerance, nor do they believe in other peoples rights.  They believe in what they believe and they think everyone should be under their belief system.

The extreme Christians are the same way.  They think their beliefs of The Bible are the only valid ones and all others are liberals and have no value or right to believe as they will.  They have no tolerance or beliefs in the rights of others only their beliefs are considered valued.

Liberals and Conservatives are the same in many ways.  Each believe that only their beliefs are valuable there is no tolerance, because the tolerance implies that the other peoples beliefs matter as much as theirs do.  We all know that is not true.

So the bottom line to me is we need to stop the tolerance bull crap and start with the "everyone has the right to believe as they will, whether you agree with them or not, movement."  In other words I don't have to tolerate your beliefs at all.  I may disagree with you and think you are completely off base.  But I have no right to say you can't believe as you do and try to make you follow my beliefs, just as you have no right to say I can't have my beliefs or try to conform me to your beliefs as being the only acceptable beliefs.

In other words we don't have the right to force others to believe as we do.  We do have the right to discuss what we believe and why we believe it.  That doesn't mean others have to respect those beliefs, they don't.  They do have to respect the rights to have the beliefs though.

That is why I believe Newsvine and other social sites are important.  That is also why I hate collapsed comments just because people disagree.  Yeah there are times when the comment has nothing to do with article, or it is advertising I understand those collapsed comments.  I also understand collapsing the attacks on people, although I don't favor it, I'd rather leave it there for all to see just what a jerk the commenter was in that case, so that it is understood how that person behaves.  Then if it is a habit they should be gone.  That is not being tolerant, it is extending the rights of free speech even though we may not agree.

Now it is no secret that I find the current crop of "conservatives" to be less than conservative and more Fascist based.  That is my belief, they don't agree.  That is fine with me.  They don't have to agree, in fact if they agreed and still stayed on that path I'd be concerned for their mental health.  There are some for whose mental health I am concerned with, but that is another article. ;~))

It is also no secret that I'm not what I consider to be a liberal, although many consider me such. 

So here is the thing that I see on this site as well as in the public forum.  People expect to be accepted for their views, as if everyone is just supposed to say, well yeah they see it that way so that is the way it is for them. 

Bull crap, they see it that way because of what they believe in.  I'm not going to say I agree with them when I think they are wrong and tolerate their beliefs as them being correct.  I'm going to either ignore them, and allow them to wallow in their own ignorance, or I will engagae them and ask why they beleieve what they do ??  Now that doesn't mean I may not like them, it means I don't understand how they see things the way they do and they are not able to explain it in a way to convince me they are correct to my way of thinking.  It doesn't mean they are right or wrong just that I disagree with them and they are wrong to me.   Just as people disagre with me and I'm not able to explain to them in a way to convince them of me being correct to them.

The bottom line is we all have the right to believe as we will and debate as long as we don't try to force others into our beliefs.

The minute we deny someone else their rights, we say we want our rights denied in the same way. 

That is how I see it, maybe you don't see it that way.  You don't have tolerate my beliefs, but you do have to allow me to have them just as I have to allow you to have yours.

Tell me what ya think if you care to.

Disagreements happen, debates are great as long as people remember the rights of everyone else as well as their own.